Demons
by Undapl
Summary: Johnny struggles with his demons by returning to art. However, when he meets Devi again, he realizes there is one more demon he needs to take care of... COMPLETE.
1. Who let the demons out?

"Aren't you glad you got out of that godforsaken apartment?"

"I suppose. It's not nearly as nice to hole up in. Too noisy." Devi stopped in front of a painting and sighed. "What do I have to do to get an exhibit? These people are soulless, and they get put up." 

Tenna stopped and followed her glance, at a painting of a stick figure raging to hopeless victims. "It's odd, I know. Some of this stuff I'll never understand. You're supposed to be the art person."

"I don't know. I like to let the demons out, but I can't really connect to others. I guess the main thing to look for in other exhibits is style, techniques… but not themes."

"'teva." Tenna said apathetically, using the annoying abbreviation for 'whatever'. Devi rolled her eyes and went on through the exhibit.

"So what happened to your little crazy doll?" Tenna asked out of boredom. "I still don't get that whole thing." 

"She's in my studio, stuck to my canvas." Devi smiles. "I'm usually too busy for her, anyway. I'm busy with managing the bookstore, and plus I've really gotten ahold of my own work."

"You haven't shown me anything yet."

"Nothings... ready, quite yet." Devi replied slyly. "Wow... now *that's* interesting!" A monster eye watched them from the wall. Only surrounded by a portion of skin, it still manages to create a look of despair, longing, and frustration with the world. Devi stood, entranced by the painting, until Tenna got annoyed and bonked her on the head with Spooky.

"Fuck, Tenna, don't *touch* me with that thing. Why did you bring him to the art museum?"

"Whaat? I bring him EVERYWHERE." Tenna pouted, gently caressing the sqeak toy.

"This is supposed to be a civilized place." Devi growled, not that she cared what people thought. She just wanted to have something to hold against the stupid thing.

"Civilized? Yeah, when they look at shit like *that*." Tenna pointed out a specific painting. Devi turned and froze.

It wasn't just the fact that it was HER up there on the wall - she didn't notice that, not at first anyway. But the fact that it was her up there - her life, her most vulnerable moment. Shit, just remembering the feeling made her want to vomit. Then she realized it wasn't just coincidence, or deja vu. It really was her in the painting, scared and angry, every detail drawn perfectly, her tear freckle, her short haircut, her clothes. The moment of confronting what she had thought to be her soul mate, locked forever in this one image. Tenna watched Devi with interest, oblivious and only slightly curious.

A few seconds of watching Devi freak was enough. Tenna moved on, looking at the wall, waiting for Devi to speak. "Hey, look," She said, noting the painter's biographer. "He's a cult figure. Popular with the homeless insane. And you call this a civilized place..." Devi grabbed Tenna and looked paranoidly around the museum. 

"He could be here." Devi hissed. 

"What? Homeless people? They're here for the free cheese, I tell you."

Devi grabbed her friend and pulled her arm. "Come on, we're going."

"Whaaat? You want to go already? But you soooo need to get out more!"

Devi paused. "Shit."

"What? Whaaat?" Tenna asked, annoyed. 

"There he is." 


	2. Pretentious Art Snobs

Devi quickly dodged behind a large statue of a stick figure, leaving Tenna standing in the open, squeaking her toy. Tenna looked at Devi doubtfully.  
  
"Shoo! Shoo!" Devi hissed at her friend, who was giving away her hiding place. Tenna rolled her eyes and walked up to Johnny.  
  
"Wha - ooOOoohh..." Devi cringed, then slumped to the floor with her head in her hands. "I'm not here, I'm not here, I'm not here," She chanted, rocking back and forth.  
  
Tenna approached a small group of people, and listened with feigned interest. Johnny shot her a look of annoyance, and then continued to listen to the speaking man. The man was dressed in the garb of the modern artist, and was in the middle of a rant concerning Johnny's lack of organized composition. Johnny, Tenna realized, although at the time she didn't know his name was Johnny, was not annoyed by her, but by him. And annoyed didn't even describe it.  
  
"Yes, well, I think I'll have to excuse myself now ---" Johnny interrupted, but then Tenna interrupted his interruption.  
  
"I think it's right to say his organization's a mess." Tenna agreed, "but that's hardly important in a piece like this. Any concern with composition would have totally taken away from the raw emotion that is expressed here. In fact, the lack of organization may even work to express the total loss of control even an artist has over his piece. It's very powerful..." She trailed off, noticing their glares.  
  
"And who might you be?" The artist condescended her, crossing his arms and looking at her expectantly.  
  
"I'm a brilliant artist from Paree, my name is Isabella, perhaps you have heard of me? No? Well, that's as much as I would expect from an American." Tenna told him without even trying to fake an accent.  
  
Johnny stared at her in shock as the others left them. Tenna looked nervously around and then squeaked Spooky. "So," she smiled, "you're an artist? This some pretty good shit."  
  
"Aren't you Devi's friend?" Johnny asked slowly.  
  
"Um... do I know you?" Tenna looked at him doubtfully. "It would seem that if you recognize me, I should recognize you, unless you've merely been stalking Devi and me."  
  
"No, I... I'm Johnny. Has Devi ever said anything about me?"  
  
Tenna stopped, her mouth frozen in a deranged looking smile. "Ah-....."  
  
Johnny bit his lip, "Um...."  
  
"I'm thirsty. Hold on a sec, I gotta get some... something thirstifying liquid." Tenna kept up the smile, and then scuttered away. "La, la la, I'm just getting something to drink..." She sang to herself as she left.  
  
Johnny watched her go, then glanced around the gallery. Devi might be here, he realized. Perhaps he should follow that girl to see...  
  
but that would be following his desires...  
  
And right now, he didn't know what he wants... 


	3. Unforgiving

Devi peered around the corner; Tenna and Johnny were gone. Shit, Devi got up and slowly walked around the museum. She realized she had somehow come to the rooms that were dedicated to the little shit Johnny.  
  
There was a biography with a photo of Johnny,  
  
there were pages of a 'Happy Noodle Boy' stick-figured-shit framed in gold.  
  
Devi stopped dead in her tracks when she came to a 'recreation of the artist's madness': two sides of a styrofoam doughboy painted and glaring at her evilly.  
  
She remembered those from Johnny's house.  
  
They 'told him to kill her'.  
  
And suddenly it all came back to her, being in that stinking house, watching Johnny come at her with two sharp daggers, and the cold fear that still hadn't left her stomach.  
  
That dark house and violent fear came back to her and it was so out of place in this shiny stupid art museum.  
  
"FUCK!" Devi screamed, stupid pretentious art fags! FUCK, stupid fucking Johnny, and what!, they are here celebrating an insane freak! What he had put her through, and what he had now accomplished! What bullshit! She couldn't control herself any longer, all she could see was the hate reflected back into her from Johnny, still there, still festering, as if she would never leave that primal instinct now. She viciously knocked down the doughboys, screamed and then started laughing hysterically. Suddenly motivated, she grabbed the framed comic strips and smashed them to the ground, kicking and screaming and smashing statues and framed art on her way. Strong arms grabbed her and held her back as there was quite a public uproar, her sinful actions of destroying such – millions dollars of art! How dare she! They were out for blood, and she struggled but it was no use.  
  
She found herself sitting in a jail cell, bruised and seething with anger.  
  
  
  
~~~  
  
Tenna watched from the bar of the snack area, where she had bought a cookie and a fruitte slushy for ten dollars. Wow, Devi kicks ass, Tenna thought, then chuckled as the artisty people reacted. She didn't like the crap anyway. She never understood abstract art, and she had only come for Devi. She had been so happy when Devi suggested it, going OUT, and Tenna had thought she was getting better. She had acted so convincingly normal. But now security was hauling her out and Tenna didn't feel like following. Devi, Devi, she sighed. Are you absolutely hopeless?  
  
She scanned the crowd inside and spotted Johnny, standing in a corner surrounded by inactive, outraged followers. Tenna followed his gaze and saw Devi, screaming maniacally as she was being pulled out. Then back to Johnny, and Tenna could've sworn she saw a hint of a smile on his face.  
  
"Ah, sweet fucked-up ness." Tenna sighed. "I've been wanting to tear down expensive art for so long now. ANARCHY!" She screamed, then realized she was being quite loud. People looked at her and she snickered like a high school student, then popped up from her chair and pushed her way through the crowd to Johnny, though many other people were talking to him.  
  
"Hey, okay, I want to talk to you now." She said.  
  
~~~  
  
"Shutup. Shutup, SHUTUP, SHUT UP!" Devi screamed at the scolding guards and backed up in a corner, sheltering her head with her arms. She just wanted to go back to her flat, and hide away from this stupid fucking world. They were still yelling at her.  
  
"What the fuck, do you know this Johnny C.? Goddamn, you fuckers, he's been stalking me and threatening me and you arrest ME for ripping up some fucking stick figure cartoons? This is bullshit!" She cried, stamping her feet half-heartedly, because she knew it was hopeless.  
  
She calmed herself down and tried to think of the positive things. She was in a jail cell – that was one place she should be safe from Johnny. She didn't have to be paranoid about him coming after her NOW. She was safe, she was safe. She sighed deeply, then tried to calmly talk to the officers.  
  
"What was that address, again?" They asked. 777, she repeated, but they simply shook their heads. "We don't have any record of an emergency surrounding that house." They told her. "That's one fine neighborhood there. Mm-hmm, never any problems there."  
  
"What the fuck is wrong with you? Let me see your heads? Do you have stitches in your head?" Devi groped for one police, but he backed up, out of her reach. "OKAAAAY, so you don't have any record of a report. Well, I would like to report a crime. NOW. I would like to press charges against one Johnny C. of 777 something street… why aren't you writing this down? You guys are the law! You're supposed to protect me!"  
  
They whispered to themselves and one picked up a phone. "Who are you calling? Who the FUCK are you calling?"  
  
"Goddammit, Devi…" A voice said. Devi panicked, then looked around. It was Sickness' voice. But where the fuck was Sickness?  
  
"Where the fuck are you?" She hissed.  
  
"Shut the fuck up, you crackwhore. You're going to get institutionalized if you don't shut up."  
  
"WHERE THE FUCK IS THAT VOICE COMING FROM?!?" Devi screamed.  
  
"Shit! Stop it, stop freaking out! I was trying to warn you, not make things worse!"  
  
"FUCK! SICKNESS FUCK! FUCK OFF! LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!! FUCK, FUCK DAMN SHIT FUCK SHIT GODDAMMIT…"  
  
  
  
"oh, lordy…………." 


	4. Evil Noodle Boy

"I don't know what you're talking about." Johnny said nervously as he sipped on the art-house wine.  
  
"So you didn't try to kill Devi that night?" Tenna demanded.  
  
"No. I wouldn't..." Johnny bit his lip. "I liked Devi. I just wouldn't kiss her."  
  
"You're saying she made it all up because you hurt her feelings? Why wouldn't you kiss her? Are you gay?"  
  
Johnny rolled his eyes and sighed loudly, "That is so ignorantly stupid. Why do people say things like that? You don't kiss a girl so you're gay? And what would be wrong with that, anyway?"  
  
"Shit, I'm kidding." Tenna eyed the artist carefully. "What about that time she called and heard guns and screams at your house."  
  
"That was the television." Johnny said solemnly, annoyedly looking ahead of him, and not at Tenna.  
  
"That wasn't you killing people?"  
  
"No, that was me being killed." He snapped back semi-sarcastically. "Now shouldn't you be looking for her? I have an art show to do."  
  
"Oh, yes, yes," Tenna yelled at him as he walked away, "go back to your precious little art fags. The wonders of stick-figure drawings! It's SO symbolic! Johnny, come back! You give my life meaning! You are the answer to my world!!" Just then she noticed suspicious whispers and approaching guards, so she yipped defiantly and scattered out of the room.  
  
  
  
~~~~~~~~  
  
Johnny huddled in the corner whispering to himself. "The art of genius is enriched by such madness," a passerby excused him to a group of tourists, and they left him alone. School children on field trips were not as kind. When they got too close, he hissed at them and pawed his face as if to hide.  
  
"This is nothing to be preoccupied with." A voice told him. He looked around, but the dull children around him only stared. "Devi is irrelevant. You have a life now."  
  
Johnny looked up slowly, realizing the voice was coming from a painting. He hesitantly rose from his corner, and wandered slowly pass the frames, dreading the ones holding dboy and mr.eff.  
  
Fortunately, they were quiet, their hideous faces mere black and white paint etched on a board. The voice was coming from their neighbor, an extravagant masterpiece of the wondrous noodle boy, stretched high among all his glory.  
  
"You have me, Johnny," Happy Noodle Boy told him, a smile stretched upon his mad face.  
  
"Shit." Johnny glared, "Now I know that's not you. You aren't supposed to make sense. You're the part of me that doesn't give a shit, that loves anarchy."  
  
"Of course I am. But that doesn't mean I'm totally ignorant or insane. Meticulous insanity is much more calculated than that. You have a chance to totally fuck up the world, Johnny, and that way is through me."  
  
"God, stop talking. you're making me sick." Johnny sank to the ground below his creation.  
  
"You can't get rid of me, Johnny. I am you at your lowest point. I was with you all those years horribly mutilating people. I am the part of you who hates human beings. Everyone. And that includes Devi."  
  
"I'm not like you - I'm not YOU, anymore." Johnny seethed, "I am BETTER now."  
  
"What? You think you belong here, with these circus freaks?"  
  
"I am better. All better."  
  
"You've a chance to fuck it up from the inside."  
  
"All better."  
  
"Imagine, not just killing losers at fast food joints, but the snobs at the art gallery."  
  
"You're not a part of me anymore."  
  
"You DREW me, didn't you?" Happy Noodle Boy leered down on Johnny. "I escaped through you. Now, go to the cafeteria and get a knife. Or did you bring one with you? I bet you did. I know you. You haven't given it up entirely. You're too used to that life."  
  
Slowly, Johnny drew a small hooked knife from his boots, which were hidden under his nice slacks. "Yessss...." Happy Noodle Boy hissed. Johnny looked at the knife, and could barely see his reflection cut throughout it. Then a shadow replaced him.  
  
He looked up and almost screamed at the small child, about to make it his first victim. But then he recognized the face, and little Squee glaringly whispered, "I heard it."  
  
Johnny dropped the knife and Squee, looking uncomfortably brave, took it and hissed at him, "I heard the picture. You're a bad man." Then the child ran away through the crowd.  
  
  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Devi rocked back and forth in the white room. Ironically she admired the strait jacket, the kind people would buy at the store if it were black. Buckles and leather and all sorts of nifty shit, only it wasn't so great when it locked you. Plus it was white, and white was just not cool, Devi mocked those people. The trendy kinds. Alas, it was all just stupid anyhow. She shouldn't have tried to attack the police. Or the medical assistants. She had calmed down just in time to avoid being drugged.  
  
"This is so fucked up." She whispered to herself in amazement. "Johnny is loose, and I'm here." She fought the jacket again, more to get out her anger than to actually free herself. "I am going to kill him." As she said it, an eerie peace settled about her. Her eyes finally rested on one spot, and she froze. "Yes."  
  
She wasn't actually going crazy, she had just found the answer to her problems. Johnny was where everything had gone wrong. Johnny had been the one at which point her life had totally gone down.  
  
All she had to do was kill the killer, and she would be free.  
  
Sickness listened to her thoughts with a smile. 


	5. Illness and Cures

"I don't want to press charges." Johnny rubbed his face tiredly and walked casually away from the buzzing policemen. Outside the sky was reverting back to it's comfortable black, and he walked home along the damp sidewalk. The Burger Boy was sitting in the same place, the same grin etched along his plastic face. He hadn't moved yet.  
  
Johnny stared at him and finally decided to talk, since things weren't doing any better to clarify themselves in his head. "So, what do you think?" He asked, as if doing the opposite of what his enemy thought would give him some direction.  
  
The Burger Boy glared, but the anger in his face slowly dissolved into a snicker of glee. He shuttered a bit, as if to shake his head, and refused to talk. "Ah," Johnny said, "You're finally not telling me what to do?" He walked circles around the doll. "So… why would that be? I'm on the right path in your mind, eh? You don't have to say anything because I'm already doing what you want." Johnny sat down beside the doll and resumed his thought position; elbows on knees, fingers tapping each other as he leaned his chin into his palms. "I'm not, though. I didn't follow Devi, when I could've. I don't need her. She brings something upon me. Something I'm not comfortable with."  
  
He became aware of the grinning burger boy and turned to him. "Like you." He watched the motionless doll. "I'm painting, and that's a way of not giving into desires." You like painting, though, a part of him said, and he froze. A part of him said, a part of him not manifested in an object. What? "A desire for painting is different than a desire for food… sleep… sex… blood." Johnny reasoned with himself. "It's a way of transcending those mediocre, daily needs. The problem is… lust…" He trailed off, then got up and wandered about the house, stopping at the pathway to the underground dungeon. After a slight hesitation, he dropped down into the belly of the house.  
  
The corpses were pungent, dissipating; the coarse remnants of a wasted life. Wasted *lives*, he remembered, but mostly he was thinking about his own. Such a waste of time. Such a primal need, to hurt others, such unnecessary actions to ones own enlightenment. Now he had something better. Messing with other people had been more of a tribute to the shit he hated, than an actualization of himself. Such a waste, he thought, wandering deeper still.  
  
"But there's one more thing to overcome." He said to himself.  
  
"Devi."  
  
  
  
Sickness was growing stronger in Devi's head and she tried to shake it out. The straitjacket worked for Sickness, holding Devi down, vulnerable to Sickness' words. I have to get out, Devi chanted, keep my own head. Devi tossed back and forth and accidentally hit her head on the soft wall, but nothing helped. Finally she paused, took a deep breath, and began singing.  
  
*As much as I definitely enjoy solitude  
  
I wouldn't mind  
  
Perhaps  
  
Spending little time with you  
  
Sometimes  
  
Sometimes  
  
Possibly maybe  
  
1 Possibly maybe  
  
Probably not  
  
Um… aahhh electric shocks…  
  
I love them  
  
With you  
  
Something something  
  
After a while I wonder  
  
Where's that love you promised me  
  
Whe-ere is it…*  
  
Devi's voice grew louder and stronger, stretching out the notes to produce a more Bjorkish tone. Her voice, still frail in comparison to Sickness' awful raspings, echoed throughout the white square room. Finally she broke off, sobbing. Sickness cackled somewhere in her head. "Something beautiful, something beautiful…" Devi chanted, trying to think of the night sky. Red paint. Tenna's gorgeous idiocy. It wasn't working.  
  
"All you can see is hate, right? Good. That's because that's all there is." Sickness hissed in her ear. "But you don't have to suffer it. You can come out on top."  
  
"On top. Like Johnny did?" Devi shook her head, "stop the façade, Sickness. You don't offer the power of the world, or the meaning of life. All you represent is an even deeper degeneration into this shithole."  
  
"Ooh, big words. Trying to convince yourself?"  
  
"There he's on his knees again,  
  
trying hard to understand,  
  
why Naveed would let a young man  
  
die  
  
Convinced that he might break,  
  
He reaches for that phone,  
  
And another day…"  
  
"Stop with the angsty pop music, please." Sickness sighed.  
  
"is gone…." Devi held back her tears. "You, Sickness, are the manifestation of THEM. And that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid."  
  
"Aww, you say it so meanly. I thought you liked Johnny."  
  
"Maybe what he could've been. But not what he is now."  
  
"Too bad, poor thing."  
  
"Johnny…" Devi hissed, chanting the name, rolling the sounds in her lips, Jha… Sha, ja, Johnny. Nny. "Manifestation. Like manifestation. Manifest Destiny. The shit people will pull, just to get ahead. Just for themselves. Greed. What's the point? Ravenous."  
  
Sickness reproached her, "Now you're dwindling down to stream of consciousness."  
  
"Maybe that's a good thing." Devi snapped.  
  
"If you want to kill someone, kill Johnny. It doesn't matter."  
  
"Yeah, but at the moment, I appear to be tied up."  
  
"Ah, if that's the case," Somewhere in the bowels of her mind, Devi could see Sickness' sneer. "Then you should've told me earlier.  
  
Somewhere in the building the alarms went off. And the door to Devi's little padded cell slowly swung open.  
  
  
  
  
  
*song lyrics from Bjork's Possibly Maybe and OLP's Naveed  
  
This is probably terribly OOC but I don't care* 


	6. Homicidal Tendencies

So perhaps Devi had rightfully rejected him. He was quite a horrible person. Even Johnny could admit that, and he almost thought he wouldn't be able to understand, or cope with, anyone liking him.  
  
That wasn't the problem. He didn't need her to be there for him. He needed her to be totally unaccessible. He needed her to stop being a part of his life. Granted, she had done all she could to stay away. But he couldn't keep coming upon her like this.  
  
At the moment, she was absolutely at his mercy. Like just another one of his victims, with Johnny in power. The police directed him to the State Institution, where Devi had been relocated, and Johnny arrived with a sense of confidence in his decision. After Devi was gone, he would be totally alone, with no hope for any such lusts. No one else could sway him the way Devi did. After she was gone, he could be on his own, and he could deal with his solitude.  
  
"We don't usually have visitors for the solitary cells." The nurse told him drily. It was a guy nurse, with a bad attitude, but that didn't matter. Keep focused on your goals, Johnny told himself. He was in the middle of threatening the nurse (for that was sometimes what one must do to get the things they want) when an alarm somewhere began shrieking. As the attendents fled the building, Johnny took the chance to wander idly about the building.  
  
Following a smell, he came upon the source of the alarm; a fire burning meticulously at the padded walls. Johnny passed cautiously by, but the flames seemed to lurch out at him. The door next to the fire was open, and Johnny peered in.  
  
And there was Devi.  
  
  
  
Devi stopped struggling with the straitjacket and looked up at Johnny. Hmm, she thought, thank you, Sickness, for the fast and prompt delivery. If Sickness still had her screw eyes they would be rolling in her head. Devi watched Johnny, wonderful and freeing images of his head splattered against the wall dancing through her brain. For a long moment he just stood there, imagining her at his mercy, seeing as she was tied up.  
  
Then something snapped, and the straitjacket unwound itself about her. "Whee!" She said, only half sarcastic, as she fumbled with the buttons and clips, somehow miraculously working it off. Johnny didn't remember the fire burning behind him, and didn't understand Devi's Houdini- trick. He was preoccupied with the vision of Devi before him.  
  
"What the fuck are you looking at?" She snapped. "Give me a knife."  
  
Slowly Johnny bent down and lifted a sharp dagger from his boot. Devi exploded into a rage of laughter that subsided only when Johnny slashed her shoulder.  
  
"Hey." She said reasonably, then touched her palm to the blood forming on her shirt. "Hey." Slow comprehension almost turned into anger, but she smiled instead.  
  
"You are the answer to my problems." He said stonily.  
  
Devi cackled and flaunted, "Dude, that is soo poetic." Quoting Nowhere, the movie that had been on the television that night at Johnny's house. The time when there had actually been potential in the world. She laughed again at her cleverness.  
  
"Shit, Devi, can you please shut up? I am serious here."  
  
She sighed and played along, "Okay, then…? I'm supposed to ask, Why are you going to kill me?"  
  
"You're the only excess in my life."  
  
"Fuck it, I'm not in your stupid life."  
  
"You're the only hope for me. Without you there, taunting me, then I'm free to fall into the void."  
  
"Giving into your demons?" Devi hissed. "God, Johnny, you were always so weak!–"  
  
"I've conquered my demons, Devi. The only one left is You."  
  
Finally Devi paused and considered this. "Wait. I'm your demon? I'm your hope?" She looked at him oddly, and all he could do was stand there, she could've sworn she saw him shaking. "Ahh.. in a place where you don't want any hope. You don't want to be happy. You'd rather sit around your stinking house, imagining yourself to be somehow transcending this desolate world! Ah, GOD, Johnny, you are so lost!"  
  
At this, Johnny leaped forward at her, dagger aimed for her head. Quickly Devi dodged, grabbed Johnny in flight, and brought him down harshly into the corner of the cell. He was too shocked to grasp the dagger, which she quickly snatched out of his hand.  
  
"You are weak, Johnny. You can never be any match to me." She said, lowering the knife to his head. "You think giving up on love, or lust, is going to make you a better person? Why the fuck do you want to be empty, Johnny? You might as well kill yourself."  
  
"I've tried that." He mentioned sharply, but she ignored him.  
  
"Living may be trite, or stupid, but that's all you have. Just because you've experienced some awfully negative emotions, doesn't mean you should look over any others, which could possibly make life bearable. Emotions… lust… stupidity. Why not? Why do you feel such violent hate for that which is simply irrelevant?"  
  
Johnny pulled out another dagger and leapt up. Devi held hers at his chin, and Johnny held his at her heart.  
  
"Life just is. And I'm going to have fun with it." Devi pulled away from Johnny and took a running leap out of the cell.  
  
He ran to the doorway, but was trapped in by the flames. How had Devi gone through, he wondered. He touched his throat and felt a trickle of blood. She had ever so gently sliced it. Shallow, and only a bit of feeling entered him. She had jumped through the flames.  
  
Johnny followed, taking a running leap out of the room. He fell into the wall of the hall, doubled over in pain and heat. Somewhere down the hall Devi laughed maniacally. "She's playing with me," he realized with terror. "This is fun to her.. This is her feeling life." He didn't like the feeling of pain. He batted a few flames off his pants and shakily stood up.  
  
Devi watched from around the corner, trying hard not to laugh. What fun! Fire and blood and the faint remnants of a loss romance. Johnny might be right, there was a sort of relationship between the two, however twisted it was. I hate you, Johnny, Devi thought, because you made ME believe there was some hope. I hate you because you're the potential that will never get realized. And you hate me because you know something better is possible, but you're too stubborn to find it.  
  
In the end, the only thing was the emotions, was the hate, was the laughter, was the fun adventure of slashing people open, (you know that feeling, Johnny, that excess), perhaps a kiss or two. A feeling. And then one final cut, and it's all over. 


	7. Another Dungeon

Johnny stumbles down the hall, his ashed clothes still burning into his skin. "DEVI!" He screamed as he staggered. "Come out and fight this now. Face to face... lets get this over."  
  
"Oh, poo." She said behind him. He whirled around, but the hall was empty. "Do you really want to get it over so soon, Johnny?" He shot glances all about the room, his head swiveling like a chicken, or some sort of bird, when he realized where the slow laughter was coming from. A loudspeaker.  
  
"HA!" Devi shouted defiantly, her mouth too close to the microphone, for her voice rang out and echoed throughout the hallways. "How do YOU like it, Johnny? How do you like being the little rat running around in someone else's maze? You loved the fight when it was you winning. But with me, you can't win. You should know that by now."  
  
"I went easy on you!" He shouted back, not knowing if she could even hear him; she had, so far, shown an eerie amount of awareness on what was happening in the bowels of the hospital. "I was weak then. I could've killed you... and now I'm ready."  
  
"Aww, you're ready to kill the one person you care about? That's touching. I've got to hand it to you, Johnny, you know how to make a girl feel special."  
  
Johnny had been walking during all this talk, searching manically for the office with the loudspeaker. Devi continued to talk about his ingratitude, but he stopped listening. He came to an office with glass windows, and in the back of the room, could make out a figure. Devi. He kicked the door open, and almost walked right into the flames that burst up at that moment. She had set it, as a trap. Damn, Johnny thought as he watched the red flames lick at the doorframe. Why was Devi the one with magical powers all of a sudden? He unlocked a nearby fire hydrant but ignored the fire, and smashed the glass window, sliding through the glass shards beside the fire. But when he got to the chair, it was empty. Above, a panel of the ceiling had been torn down.  
  
Johnny sighed with aggravation and, light as a cat, slunk through the opening into the stuffy space above the ceiling. Here the wind hissed and strange noises clattered down metallic hallways, of unknown directions. Melting in with the crackle of the fire and the hiss of the wind, a breathy, shadowy whisper rose above his ears: *Joooohhhnnnny.* Some tiny foreboding sent a strike of fear through his body and he started crawling as fast as his awkwardly long legs could crawl.  
  
A hoard of spiders scattered around a corner and swiftly swarmed past him, his gloved hands disappearing momentarily under the black wave. He shuddered, but it was soon over, and he persisted. Metal sputtering somewhere to the right. Crawling towards a distant light -  
  
a knife tore through the metal and pierced his left hand. "SHIT" He gasped and pulled his hand back instinctively, causing the rip to lengthen. He stopped himself from crying out, but laughter told him Devi had heard. "Am I not playing fair?" Johnny paused, looked up, and then felt the metal beneath him give. He free-fell down another metal shaft, his head and legs bending at awkward positions and occasionally getting stuck, so that he was held, mid-air, down this passage. Nowhere to go, he let himself catch a breath, and then continued the fall down,  
  
down to the garbage. This ventilation system didn't make any sense, he grumbled, only shortly, as he felt something distinctly broken in either of his legs. He was about to look for a way out of the cramped room, when a particular pile began to move. He paused and stared. A tiny head popped out, paper breaching to make way for the figure. It was a doll. She shook her head out, then an arm, two arms followed. She pulled her body halfway out, then seemed to be stuck. Johnny was frozen, watching the little thing's plight. Finally she got a good grasp, and two razor sharp lengths of feet, or legs, or.... they followed her body. Steadied her on the ground. She grew a manner of confidence, then stared back at him.  
  
"Hi." She said.  
  
Johnny stumbled backwards, limping desperately but pushing himself anyway, groping for a doorknob, and, somehow, made it out of the room and into a small hallway. He limped quickly down the dark hall, realizing in his flight, that he had lost his dagger.  
  
He was now weaponless, hurt, and exhausted. And angry.  
  
"Where's your little figments now? They aren't here to help you, I notice." Devi's face swooned out of the darkness, and he was surprised to find that his fist actually hit a solid object. She ducked back down into the darkness after being hit. That was unexpected. Johnny fell to his knees and let the dark envelop him as well. Clothes swished behind him as someone knelt. "Johnny." Devi's voice was a whisper in his ear, something in his imagination. He swallowed and closed his eyes. "Johnny, don't try to fight it."  
  
Then there was the strangest sensation, moisture at his neck. His arms pricked up, but he was too exhausted to move away from the lips. Devi caressed his back, bringing light fingers to dance across to his shoulder. He couldn't breathe anymore. She grasped his shoulder tightly, then pulled him around to face her.  
  
If Johnny could see in the dark, he would've witnessed the evilest smirk on Devi's face as she leaned in to kiss him. But, as it was dark, they were only aware of the sounds and feelings. In the dark, someone gasped, a swift slash was heard, and then someone cried out in something that sounded like both pain and pleasure.  
  
Johnny dipped his hand in the warm, flowing blood, and this time he couldn't stop the loud, body-shaking sobs that flooded him. 


	8. Transcending Sponginess

Squee wandered home, wondering why his parents had dropped him off at an art museum. Usually the mall or the playground sufficed.  
  
Maybe they had known the scary neighbor would be there. Perhaps they were on his side, they wanted Nny to get rid of Squee for them.  
  
Squee fiddled with the knife he had taken from the artist. It was clean, silver... no traces of actual blood. That reassured Squee, and he clutched the knife closely to his chest. His parents hadn't let him bring Shmee along for the ride, and he was all alone again. The dark did scary things to the street. It made it disappear. Squee was afraid to look down at his own body, in fear that it, too, would be gone.  
  
Although, Squee thought to himself, that might not be a bad thing. That might be the only resort for someone like him.  
  
The stick figure, at the art show. Shmee hissing * that stupid neighbor of yours... some people are not so lucky... stupid... stupid... I eat your sickness... it's not just him...*  
  
"Maybe," Squee said rationally to the knife, "Maybe the stick figure was Nny's sponge. Maybe he's okay." But then, why was he pulling out a knife? Squee felt oddly proud, as if he had just stopped something terrible that could've happened at the art museum. "Think of what you could've done." He whispered gently to the knife, then folded it up carefully into his jacket.  
  
"Squeee..." The old friend welcomed the boy back into the safety of his room. The house was empty, but the bear was there, as always, ready to catch Squee when he fell.  
  
"Shmee!" Squee locked the door and ran to the bed, too afraid to turn on the lights. "Cos then, they out there in the dark," he pointed to the window, "they can see me, and I won't be able to see them. I can't have the lights on."  
  
Shmee lay silent. "Shmee?" Squee poked his friend, then hugged him tight. "You there?"  
  
"God, you're hard to take care of..." Shmee gasped. "It's getting to be too much."  
  
"What are you talking about? I'm happy today."  
  
"I'm full. I'm full of your shit..." Squee frowned at his friends' words, trying to understand why Shmee was suddenly being so mean. "It's time for me to go." Shmee gasped.  
  
"No!" Squee squeaked. "Shmee - what? No... I can't survive here alone. They'll eat my brains! You understand these things."  
  
"There's someone else coming.. they'll help you..." Shmee reassured him. Then a light flooded the cramped room, knocking Squee off the bed... as if light can knock a person about. Squee tumbled off the covers, and then fell  
  
landing on hard ground. Shaking, Squee lay there, looking around. It was dark, but a far-away light let him see enough to understand. He was in a tunnel.  
  
He whirled around and saw a matching light, at the other end of the tunnel. He was somewhere between his house, and Johnny's house. Dread iced down his back. Which way was safety, and which was...  
  
He couldn't be sure, but he wasn't ready to trust the man with the knives. He had to get back home to Shmee. Some illogical part of the kid rationalized that home equaled safety, equaled Shmee and his parents. The little that he had.  
  
"Which way, Shmee?" He trembled. A sickening slurp of something gliding down the tunnel walls was his only answer. He had to get out of the tunnel before it all caved in and killed him. Or before gutter monsters broke in and dragged him into the sewer to become one of them. He panicked, twirled around in circles, and then ran to one end of the tunnel randomly.  
  
He came to a basement. A regular basement, something that could've been at the bottom of any house. Boxes and boxes and towers of boxes. He still didn't know if he was safe. He wasn't about to go back into the tunnel.  
  
"Shmee..." he whimpered, tightening his coat around him. Something solid met his fingers, and he slowly uncovered the knife. "You aren't going to tell me what to do, are you?" He asked it. It remained quiet. "No... I suppose not," he sighed, then slowly tiptoed about the boxes.  
  
When he came to the door entering into the house, he heard glass crashing. His parents, of course. That anger signified some sort of safety, to him. He dashed about the house, not recognizing anything inside, but running toward the noise anyway.  
  
A man turned around and Squee gasped, not even able to make a squee noise. Johnny's face was indescribable, even more disturbed than normal. Blood coated his black limbs, and he lowered the plastic toy in his hands. Then he threw it across the room.  
  
Squee followed the toy in order to avoid eye contact with the neighbor. It was a Bub's Burger Toy, but deformed and bloody. The arm that was meant to hold a burger was missing. Squee walked over the dirty floor and gently picked up the salvaged plastic. *remember that girl who gave me to you....* it hissed.  
  
"Leave it." Johnny spoke, rubbing his face and collasping onto a box that rattled. He wiped his eyes, and then looked glumly about his house. Johnny blinked as the words cascaded through his mind, *doing what you did... what she did to you...*  
  
Squee frowned, walked towards his neighbor with the doll, and then looked up at Johnny, who looked down with a blank expression. Squee trembled, and then burst into tears and threw his arm around the thin leg. Johnny frowned but hesitated to pull the small form off.  
  
"I need someone." Squee sobbed. "It's so scary out there. Are... are you my new sponge?"  
  
The word set Johnny off. He rose and roughly pulled the child off, picking him up and setting him on the box. "Look, Squee." He said, kneeling down and facing him at an equal height. "I'm not a sponge anymore. I can't help you right now. I don't feel anything anymore. I've gone past that. The most you can hope to is to find the same place."  
  
Squee wiped the tears and accidentally smeared the blood from Johnny's pants on his face. "I-- I don't -" his voice trembled, and he quickly nestled his face into his small arms.  
  
Johnny stood resolute, not wanting to feel any sympathy for the child. He wouldn't want to have to escape another human connection...  
  
"Squee, go home. Everything will be all right. You'll survive." He said. He led Squee out the door and then shut it behind him. Squee, on the cold dark porch, sniffed and began to walk home.  
  
As a second thought, he snapped back and flung himself on the door, beating on the wood. "Please just kill me, scary man!" He screamed. "It's all right!"  
  
Inside, Johnny flinched and set off for the lower catacombs of his house to think. He didn't remember that Squee had taken one of his knives. 


	9. Soul Cleansing

On one of the lower levels, Johnny saw an open door. Someone in my house, a thought ran through his mind. And then the thought of Her, the times he indulged in daydreams enough to think that a tap at the door, a creak down the hallway, a ring of phone, all might have been symbols of someone who might understand. No more hope now. No more wishing for someone to help him. He was gone now.  
  
He remembered the small boy, Squee, wandering through his house, though he couldn't get his mind to concentrate very well. The tunnel... he must've crawled in through there. Sponge, Johnny thought bitterly. Some request, asking help from someone so far down. The poor child couldn't help it, though... the world was so extremely full to the brim of ugly things. One's only hope is to refrain from contributing to it. If only the child could understand that.  
  
But what was Devi, then? She was emotion, but not... not negative emotion. That was the confusing part. She was the one who screamed at him Feel! Feel as if your life depends on it! But he was not one to listen. He had had enough of this idea, anyhow, this - Feeling, enough of it to know that it was nothing he wanted part in. The few times he dropped his defenses, let himself dream, of her... those few times were enough to make him repent his weakness, and torture himself for the rest of the week.  
  
And what God are you repenting your sins for? Devi would've asked him. But she wasn't there. Devi wasn't there. No more Devi.  
  
A soft kick into something furry. Rats? Johnny wondered, and instinctively switched a lightbulb on, seen in the dark. No, a rather ratty stuffed bear, eyes pulled out of their sockets and stuffing trailing down the hall. The kid. He didn't have his bear with him this time. Johnny laughed. "It appears all the demons are losing tonight." He snickered at the bear. "All the excess. Things are cleaning up, for once."  
  
Wiping the surface of the earth clean. But hadn't that been his goal before, with the killing and the people.... no, but that had been the wrong way. Johnny had no care for the good of the world. Killing people took too much out of him, and he had to be selfish in this. He couldn't be the mighty hero taking care of all the villains. He had to take care of himself. He had to go his own way, fuck it if the world goes to shit.  
  
That was why he had to kill Her. Johnny sighed and shook it off. Devi had been in the way. He rationalizes and understands that. But he can't explain it to the sickening side of him which insists on... feeling. "No more burger boy, mr.eff, d-boy, devi. Not even Nailbunny now. I'm clean." He whispered, slamming a fist into the wall.  
  
But - No. No, there was one more tie to take care of.  
  
  
  
The car sped away from the broken art museum, the shattered glass and sirens hounding him. Things were harder to go about, when you refused to use murder. Like breaking into a simple art museum at night. Goddammit, things could be so much easier. He had only wanted to get his own piece back. All the trouble...  
  
The sirens howled through the night, lonely dogs hungry for a kill. Kill the killer. But that won't work, will it. Johnny stepped on the gas, chanting, if i have to live, let me do it the way i want to.  
  
"NO, no NO!" Happy Noodle Boy screamed from the painting thrown in the back. Johnny turned on the radio. "How do you know this is what you want, Johnny? You're fasting yourself like a perfect fundamentalist religious person."  
  
"GodDAMMIT, stop using big words." Johnny screamed over the country music. Can't indulge in enjoying music. "It's fucking retarded. I didn't make you to be my conscious."  
  
"Oysters and crabdip. You kill and I'll go back to being your joyous passion, Happy. But this is NOT exactly feeding my hunger."  
  
"Well I suppose it doesn't matter, because soon you'll be gone."  
  
"Johnny, please," Noodle Boy's voice drifted from the back, eerily reasonable. "Think about it. You're serving some God. What for? Just do what you want to do."  
  
"Yeah, and if I don't know what I want to do, I just have to float along with what I set out to do, don't I?" Johnny snapped. "I've had enough of this."  
  
"What are you going to do, kill yourself?"  
  
"Explain to me why or why not."  
  
A sigh extinguished. "If you want to feel nothing, go ahead. You'll barely be living anyway, at this rate."  
  
"Exactly what Devi -- " Johnny paused, then stopped talking.  
  
Noodle Boy hesitated. "But you have forever to be dead, Johnny. Forever to be Nothing. Why don't you go ahead, and BE something, while you still can? Be random and idiotic and do what you want to do. Indulge. Be happy. There's nothing else there."  
  
"So I suppose my only aim is for nothingness."  
  
"Such a pity."  
  
  
  
Noodle Boy crawled out of the back seat and over the car, resting beside the antennae, watching his creator. Johnny sat still on the hood of the car, his head bowed, not seeing the rich expanse of city beneath him. A cliff for perfect access to death.  
  
"Are you going to jump or what? You sure are prolonging the torture." Noodle Boy prodded him, bored.  
  
"Entertain me, wretch."  
  
Noodle Boy more than happily obliged, jumping down to the cold ground and began a performance. "'Excuse me', said another cow to another dog. 'but why have you not yet swallowed your trunk?' 'Sorry,' the dog said, 'it is because I thought I was an elephant.'" Noodle Boy howled, a small voice in the lonely, still night, and then danced around.  
  
"Since when have you gone literature on me."  
  
"Hey, Theater of the Absurd - it's not a far stretch." Happy Noodle Boy paused. "It's not as if you aren't terribly out of character, either. No matter - people change. But here we go - Listerine and Caviar! Booty Cheese! Citrus blood curling up the fireplace like a rabbit!"  
  
"It's very trying." Johnny turned his attention from the acrylic form, back to the small city lights. "Devi didn't scream."  
  
"A murder?" Happy Noodle Boy asked, intrigued. "You've been holding back on me! Do tell."  
  
"I want to get rid of my demons, not indulge in them."  
  
"Oh, pfft. I'm not a demon, I'm a... passion. Go on, you know you want to."  
  
Against better judgement, Johnny began to speak. "She kissed me. On the neck. She was playing with my mind. She's caused me so much more pain than I've caused her... I'm supposed to be the one making them beg. But Devi... she always wins.  
  
"She makes me feel. And I can't handle that. She kissed me, and turned me around and there was so much more possibility, I thought I could feel myself trembling. Me, trembling. And then one, one tiny part of me, gave into it. One part of me saw myself, kissing her back. Devi makes me feel, why... why should I give that up? Even though she hates me, this doesn't have to end. Part of me wanted to kiss and run, prolonging the excitement, adventure. Running through the asylum stabbing her and embracing her and such an orgy of emotion waved over me...."  
  
"You should've given in." Noodle Boy protested. "I'm sorry, continue..?"  
  
"It's so dead here." Johnny said, changing the subject to comment on the night. "Everything is dead here. It's a wasteland. Goddamn, a fucking wasteland, but that's all it is. Anyhow, that's all it is now. There's nothing left.... tonight is so quiet. The city's so still. I don't feel anything for it anymore. Not even hatred. I feel...."  
  
"Nothing?" Happy Noodle Boy asked. "Really?" Johnny was silent for a long moment. "Anyways," the stick figure said annoyed, "please finish the killing of Devi, I'm dying to know. Get this bitch done with."  
  
Johnny paused, then started back again, almost in mid-sentence "So when she turned me around, I kissed her back. In that one moment, I felt it. We kissed. And I felt her... I dunno, her spirit glowing against me, it was hatred, or love, or some twisted sense of both. That one moment, just... sitting there, bleeding, and crying, and I could feel tears down my cheeks even as I kissed her, and she felt them too. I think she knew she had this tremendous effect on me, and I couldn't give her that power. The one second after I gave in, I suddenly hated her with such force.. I hated her because I love her. I hate her because she makes me feel.  
  
"And while she was still captured in that kiss, I managed the knife out of her grip and stabbed her."  
  
"Are you sure you killed her?"  
  
"Pretty sure. I stabbed her in the heart."  
  
"Oh, Johnny..." Happy Noodle Boy sighed, sitting beside the car and looking out in the empty black night, the void of a city. Nothing there. "What are you going to do now?" Nothing here. Just an idiot and his delusion. 


	10. To Catch A Thief

"The subject was apprehended at a nearby dead end, standing over a cliff. Officers found the stolen painting in a car nearby, having been torn and massacred. Police are still attempting to identify the male, but no identification was found on his persons, and he refuses to speak."  
  
"It's like he's dead inside."  
  
"Child, turn that television off, how many times I told you not to watch those police shows?"  
  
"Isn't he the neighbor?"  
  
"You never know about these people...."  
  
"I don't like the way he walks. He doesn't speak, he doesn't move right. He's not even here. What are you going to do, try a dead man?"  
  
"After much investigation, police now suspect the man to be somehow related to many of the mass murders in the city. No fingerprints were found, but an investigation of the car has found multiple traces of blood, many different types, indicating a large amount of people bleeding inside at various times. Weapons also tainted with blood were found in the trunk. When asked about this evidence against him, or his house, the man refuses to explain."  
  
"So much blood there."  
  
"Think of everything he's seen."  
  
"Maybe that's why he looks so dead inside."  
  
"He's a monster, a killer. And a thief."  
  
"The suspect has now been identified as a Mr.Johnathan C----. His house, 777 St., has been locked up after much more evidence has directly related him to the vast majority of the mass murders."  
  
"We can rest easy now."  
  
"Hey, have you seen Devi?"  
  
"No more dangers in the world,"  
  
"As if now, everything's okay."  
  
"Johnny?"  
  
"Why did you kill them, Johnathan?"  
  
"Did you rape any of them?"  
  
"Where are the bodies?"  
  
"He still refuses to speak."  
  
"Being tried to mass murder, besides the theft of course."  
  
"He'll never get out."  
  
"It'd be better off if they killed him."  
  
"Did you know him, Tenna?"  
  
"What were you thinking when you killed him?"  
  
"How could someone do such things...?"  
  
"They didn't deserve it. No one deserves that kind of torture."  
  
"Did you hear about the basement of the house...?"  
  
"If only she had never met him..."  
  
"I wonder how people like that are created."  
  
"What a trip to be inside HIS head."  
  
"Johnathan, will you please speak to us?"  
  
"My client pleads guilty."  
  
"Johnathan?"  
  
"The sentence will be either life in prison, or death."  
  
"John?"  
  
"They should burn him at the stake. That's what HE deserves."  
  
"Johnny?"  
  
........  
  
"Johnny...."  
  
hssssss.................  
  
"I didn't mean any of it."  
  
"No?"  
  
"I didn't do it."  
  
"Who did?"  
  
"It was the demons." 


End file.
